Years ago, when gigahertz CPUs became affordable, I downloaded a free, simple N-body software program from the internet. I found that quite often, when two solar systems passed close to one another, some planets would be sent flying off into space at high speeds.

I’m sure the researchers written about in the above article are using much, much more sophisticated N-body software, not to mention supercomputers, but I still find this to be fascinating stuff.

Years ago, when gigahertz CPUs became affordable, I downloaded a free, simple N-body software program from the internet. I found that quite often, when two solar systems passed close to one another, some planets would be sent flying off into space at high speeds.

I’m sure the researchers written about in the above article are using much, much more sophisticated N-body software, not to mention supercomputers, but I still find this to be fascinating stuff.

Wouldn't it then be just as likely that there was a ninth major planet but we lost it? That would explain both the position of Sedna AND why we can't find the damn thing.

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Years ago, when gigahertz CPUs became affordable, I downloaded a free, simple N-body software program from the internet. I found that quite often, when two solar systems passed close to one another, some planets would be sent flying off into space at high speeds.

I’m sure the researchers written about in the above article are using much, much more sophisticated N-body software, not to mention supercomputers, but I still find this to be fascinating stuff.

Wouldn't it then be just as likely that there was a ninth major planet but we lost it? That would explain both the position of Sedna AND why we can't find the damn thing.

I have no special expertise in running N-body simulations. All I’ve done is a lot of playing around with simple N-body software just to see what happened when I played god and built my own solar systems. Nothing I did was particularly scientific, or systematic.

The stuff the Lund University researchers are doing is orders of magnitude more sophisticated than my simple N-body software. I have no reason to question their hypothesis, other than to note that there are, of course, a number of other possible causes/explanations for those odd Kuiper belt object orbits.

That being said, what I did see happening quite often with my “games” led me to believe that because most stars and solar systems form fairly close together in clusters, galaxies probably have more rogue, or free-floating, planets in them than stars. And, most of those rogue planets are probably small, Mercury size bodies flying around far too fast to ever be captured again by another star.

There are people working on N-body simulations involving the theory of migrating planets within single solar systems. That’s a whole different ballgame from the simple N-body software I’ve played around with, but much more in line with what you may be thinking. I’ll keep an eye out for anything interesting in that line of research and post it ITT, if I find anything.

Uranus orbits widdershins on its side and has an EM "field" is a corkscrew. The orbits of Neptune and Pluto stretch like taffy to the point of occasional intersection.

This has been known a for a long, long, longlonglong time. The only real question ever since has been WHAT... and the only meaningful and honest answer to be had is an unknown object of very considerable mass.

As to all else... I don't know, but it's a heavily obscured subject to say the least..

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Some astronomers think there is more than just one new planet to be found out there far beyond the eight ( we know about.

Below is a quotation from the article, “Extreme trans-Neptunian objects lead the way to Planet Nine”.

'In any case, the statistical and numerical evidence obtained by the authors, both through this and previous work, leads them to suggest that the most stable scenario is one in which there is not just one planet, but rather several more beyond Pluto, in mutual resonance, which best explains the results. “That is to say we believe that in addition to a Planet Nine, there could also be a Planet Ten and even more,” the Spanish astronomer points out.'

Yet another planetary size body, other than the previously proposed Planet Nine, is suspected of causing a ‘warp’ in the Kuiper Belt.

Here’s a quotation from the article:

‘"The observed distant KBOs are concentrated in a ring about 30 AU wide and would feel the gravity of such a planetary mass object over time," Volk said, "so hypothesizing one planetary mass to cause the observed warp is not unreasonable across that distance."

This rules out the possibility that the postulated object in this case could be the hypothetical Planet Nine, whose existence has been suggested based on other observations. That planet is predicted to be much more massive (about 10 Earth masses) and much farther out at 500 to 700 AU.’

Yet another planetary size body, other than the previously proposed Planet Nine, is suspected of causing a ‘warp’ in the Kuiper Belt.

Here’s a quotation from the article:

‘"The observed distant KBOs are concentrated in a ring about 30 AU wide and would feel the gravity of such a planetary mass object over time," Volk said, "so hypothesizing one planetary mass to cause the observed warp is not unreasonable across that distance."

This rules out the possibility that the postulated object in this case could be the hypothetical Planet Nine, whose existence has been suggested based on other observations. That planet is predicted to be much more massive (about 10 Earth masses) and much farther out at 500 to 700 AU.’

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Yet another planetary size body, other than the previously proposed Planet Nine, is suspected of causing a ‘warp’ in the Kuiper Belt.

Here’s a quotation from the article:

‘"The observed distant KBOs are concentrated in a ring about 30 AU wide and would feel the gravity of such a planetary mass object over time," Volk said, "so hypothesizing one planetary mass to cause the observed warp is not unreasonable across that distance."

This rules out the possibility that the postulated object in this case could be the hypothetical Planet Nine, whose existence has been suggested based on other observations. That planet is predicted to be much more massive (about 10 Earth masses) and much farther out at 500 to 700 AU.’